


In Ivy and In Twine

by AnInternationalReputation



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Body Horror, Breathplay, Budding Love, Dream Sex, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Fade Sex, First Time, Human Cole, M/M, Other, Purple Prose, Sleep Orgasms, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Spirit Cole (Dragon Age), The Fade, Transformation, Wet Dream, this can only end in tears
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:33:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4657992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnInternationalReputation/pseuds/AnInternationalReputation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cole and Solas speak each others' language, and both of them see the other in ways the rest of the Inquisition can't. A love story told along two paths: one in which Cole becomes more human, and another in which he remains a spirit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It Never Wanted Before

_ “It makes sense. It holds them as they die. But then it's a man, and he wants a woman. Why?” _

_ “When they possess people, they often indulge in feelings they have never before experienced.” _

_ “But it changed. It is blank, black, blunted from being. It never wanted before.” _

_ “Have you felt no interest in women since you came through the Veil?” _

_ “No.” _

The story comes to him, as they sometimes do these days — filtering through the sunlight on the leaves and the babbling of the nearby brook. Water and light don't remember: they move too quickly. But the trees and the rocks do, and murmur through them. Here they hid and were sheltered, stealing moments fraught with the knowledge that they were fleeting. Here they stood, balancing to cross, and her foot slipped into the stream. There, the man whose eyes caught the light in a strange way, whose eyes were older than his face. He reached out and grasped her hand to save her from falling in. He would take her away, far away. She was now all he wanted, a coarse and dampened desire compared to the expanse of wisdom it held before.

Not long ago, Cole would have shied away from the story. Too many voices speaking at once, too sharp and bright, pains of the past that linger and can never be soothed.

He's come to welcome them. It hurts more to hold them out, to deny the stories their one desire: to be heard. And he can _learn_ from them.

It helps that he now has someone he can ask.

"When they possess people, they often indulge in feelings they have never before experienced."

Something new. A string drawn tight between them, one he doesn't want to cut. Still...

"But it changed. It is blank, black, blunted from being. It never wanted before."

Solas asks about women, and Cole doesn't wonder at the wording. He doesn't have to. There was a woman in the story, and women have a certain feeling — no, that isn't quite right. Certain men who have feelings about women have certain feelings about them. Soft, fluttering heart, warm skin, silk, breath that barely crosses a threshold.

Cole doesn't understand, precisely, what lies on the other side. But he knows enough to know he doesn't understand.


	2. Divergence

_“Are you well, Cole?”_

_“Well wishing, waiting for once. Clean and clear, uncluttered.”_

_“I am glad to hear it.”_

_“Can I help you? You healed my hurt, but yours is old inside, vast across the Veil.”_

_“I am fine, thank you. There are others who need your help more urgently.”_

_“Yes.”_

The amulet glows with a light not unlike Veilfire, though not quite as cold: there is power in it beyond simple illumination. It is a bright shield, blocking those who would use (and misuse) a spirit for their own selfish purposes.

It pleases Solas to see it light up, and to see the relief and peace in Cole’s eyes as the power takes hold. He was right, after all: the spirit only needed to face the man who shaped his fate, to see him with the same gaze he turned on everyone. Compassion. Forgiveness. Finally, he can be free.

...still. Remarkable that a spirit as self-aware as Cole is now can hold on to a thought as complex as relief. Relief requires remembrance: knowing the way something was before, knowing the way it is now, and being able to compare the two. Requires having a personal, vested interest in that difference. Requires having a person at all.

It seems there are ways in which he is still both. The spirit and the ghost. Not of this world, but in it, shaped by it, shielded from his own changeable nature by the limits of a fixed reality. He seems to accept it. His only wish, as it ever has been, is to help and to heal.

Solas continues to observe when the opportunity arises. When he feels the flutter of the Veil that means the spirit is nearby. For the most part, they both keep to themselves while in Skyhold. Cole has his unseen duties to attend to, and Solas is more than content to leave him to it.

Things do change while they’re away. Out in the overgrowth of the Emerald Graves, among the ruins. There are simply less people here, and more memories.

On more than one night in the Graves, Solas finds himself delaying sleep, caught in an internal argument over whether he’s being foolish or prudent. How long has he wished to visit a place as ancient and as sacred to the Dalish as this…? And yet, the trees have such a long memory.

The campfire is down to coals, a dull orange glow that barely illuminates the statue of the wolf that watches over the area. The Knight’s Guardian.

“They build statues of the small ones.” Cole is there, as he so often suddenly is, this time sitting cross-legged at Solas’ feet — but turned away from him, looking up at the wolf. “Fight with them, feed them, call them friend. Sleep, and trust them to guard their dreams.”

Solas’ hand tightens, just a bit, on his staff. Cole’s ability to see to the heart of things spares no one — he’s known that long enough, yet still fears a word spoken in kindness at the wrong moment.

Now is not that moment. The Inquisition guards are standing far enough away, and the humming of nighttime insects will mask their speech, as long as they’re quiet.

“The wolves chose their Dalish,” Solas replies, “as today’s mabari choose their Fereldens. So they were honored as protectors.”

And not tricksters. That designation was saved for one wolf in particular.

Cole’s hat tips to one side. It’s a sign he’s thinking: it often happens in small, economical movements like that. As if he’s finding a space for the information presented, setting it down, stepping back, and seeing how it changes the picture.

“Would they build again, for one who protected what they were?”

“I’m afraid not.”

A longer silence passes. Cole looks down, away from the statue, then stands.

“You don’t have to stay awake. I could stay at your side. I could watch.”

Solas wonders at why Cole is pointing this out. He can’t think Solas has forgotten that Cole doesn’t sleep, or think that Solas’ only worries come from outside the Fade…

...unless he is offering to join him there. Does Cole now possess the ability to return to the Fade? He couldn’t before, but perhaps releasing his burden has re-awakened some old abilities...

“I know you could.” Whatever Cole’s precise intentions, Solas appreciates the offer, as he always does. But he will not command Cole’s protection to the exclusion of others, even in this instance. It would be no better than binding him. “But the dreams of this place are mine to face alone.”

“You don’t _have_ to be.”

It’s the phrasing, more than the insistence in Cole’s voice, that gives Solas pause.

“There have been more than enough instances, in my time, when I did,” he answers, gently, at length. “I am quite capable of protecting myself. Thank you, Cole.”

* * *

_“How do you feel, Cole? Are you…”_

_“I am me. I cannot be bound, broken. I will help the hurt and kill the killers.”_

_“I see. I... let me know if I can help.”_

The world sounds different than it did before. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but the differences have asserted themselves enough times by now.

Some things are quieter. Muffled. Like putting his ear to a wall and listening to a conversation through the cracks in the wood. Occasionally, something is spoken and the wood warps it, turns it into garbled, wordless sound. But he still gets the larger part of things. Mostly.

Other things are louder. Birds. Wind. The sound of a hammer against metal. His own thoughts, no longer on equal footing with the thoughts of others, but amplified, more pronounced.

But he _can_ still hear, most of the time. And he can still try to help. He is himself.

It’s a relatively quiet day in Skyhold. There is always something to prepare for, but the next journey or known threat is still a long way away. Cole has retreated to one of the courtyard walls, having attempted to steal into the kitchen for a lemon (they are rarely available, but Josephine likes when the scent of them comes off the top of her desk). He was spotted almost immediately.

People see him now. Eyes catch and hold onto him eagerly, like he’s real. That worries him more than the way things sound. For now, he will sit and concentrate on listening. There must be someone here he can still help properly.

Cole closes his eyes.

He is with Varric, and Varric is talking, telling a story, but Cole can’t hear the words. Then he can, but they’re flying past him, the meanings barely brushing his mind. Something about Kings and jesters. He’s dealing out cards for Wicked Grace, and laying them face-up, but Cole can’t see the pictures. Everything is dark.

Varric keeps on talking, and Cole struggles to comprehend, to be heard when he speaks: “Varric, I don’t understand.”

What Varric says next is clear as a bell, as he looks up from the cards: “That’s all right, Kid. This isn’t really happening.”

Cole’s head jerks up and his eyes bolt open again; his fingers tighten on the ledge where he’s sitting. Where he’s still sitting. He has not moved except to sit up abruptly, fighting the sense that the ground is spinning up toward him. His heart is hammering in his chest. He clambers down off the ledge, but finds himself holding onto it for just another moment.

“Not real,” he murmurs to no one but himself, trying to make sense of this. “Slipped away and found a story no one ever told. What does it mean?”

Moments later, he’s slipping through the door to the rotunda, hoping to find Solas… and there he is, standing in contemplation of his unfinished mural. He turns at the creak of the door.

“Cole.” His greeting is warm, welcoming. He strolls away from the wall, toward the table in the center of the room. “How are you feeling today?”

Cole takes two steps into the room and stops there. His hands are lightly linked in front of his chest, fingers worrying with each other.

“I saw another place,” he says. “The shades of things taken apart and cobbled back together. A face that wasn’t a face, shapes in a darkened room, but it… it wasn’t real.”

Solas pauses in his steps, the whisper of his thoughts turning toward concern, then interest, the hunger of the knowledge-seeker. “You had a dream.”

Cole nods once. It’s what he suspected, but he needed to hear it from someone else. It’s been so long since he had anything like a dream.

Solas continues, moving past the table and closer to Cole. “You re-entered the Fade, but as a human would. You encountered another spirit, and it created the dream for you.”

Cole keeps his gaze low, focused on the pendant in the center of Solas’ chest. “It did things I didn’t understand.”

With a gentle assurance, Solas places a hand on Cole’s shoulder. “Spirits who are still a part of the Fade often don’t comprehend the meaning of the thoughts they mirror. That’s why many see dreams as being nonsensical. But humans — non-mages — are safe in the Fade, so long as they enter through dreams.”

“Am I human?” Varric said so, but Cole isn’t always certain.

“You are unique,” Solas replies with surety, lowering his hand. “And I am glad you came to me with this. Is this the first dream you’ve had?”

“I’ve heard the songs before. Pulling past the Veil, making ripples to drift on. I couldn’t see what was underneath.” Except for those times when he was brought into the Fade by other means… but those were hardly dreams.

“If you would like, I could go with you next time,” Solas says. It’s enough to make Cole raise his eyes a little, so he can see Solas’ nose under the brim of his hat… but he turns his head away before he gets to the eyes. “Even non-mages can become aware in the Fade, with the proper guide.”

When Varric, or the Inquisitor, or the kitchen staff have offered to help Cole, he has always declined it. There is much he is capable of on his own, and he has never required their assistance: only their acceptance. Or their forgetting, when acceptance was impossible.

“I could learn to dream on my own,” he says, thinking aloud. “But… it would be frightening.”

“And the fright might pull you away from your purpose,” Solas says, finishing the thought without having to be prompted. “It could make it harder to help people.” He lifts one hand in a gesture of pause. “Take your time to think on it. I will not do anything unless you ask.”

 _Take your time,_ he says. But they both know Cole’s thoughts. They’re the same thoughts he’s had regarding Solas since the beginning: here is someone who understands.

“I don’t know when I’ll sleep next.” He still doesn’t _need_ sleep — he thinks — so there’s no telling when it might strike. But Solas has his ways. “Can we go together?”

Cole is still not looking at Solas’ face, but he can hear the soft smile, along with a distant, high howl.

“When you’re ready.”


	3. Fade One

_“Being pulled through means you don't have enough you. You become what batters you, bruises your being.”_

In the Fade, the Graves lives up to its name. The grass and moss are greener than green on the surface, but look closer and they are glistening, shimmering with red, liquid light. Take a step in the wrong spot, and the ground gives slightly underfoot, fresh blood pooling upwards. The trees are even more grotesque: they are the bodies of those they mourn, twisted trunks and split limbs, faces barely recognizable for what they once were straining through the bark. Yet look again and they are monuments: proud, living memories in their own right, as imposing as carved stone and stronger for the roots that dig deep into the earth.

It is a land of Rage and Despair. Even when none of the demons named for those emotions are nearby, their elements blend and clash: one patch of ground is deathly cold, another suffocatingly hot, and at the spots where they meet and mix, the air is filled with blinding steam.

Here, the slaughter goes on. Templars, their armor gleaming with the terrible, glorious light of the Maker, file through the trees. Solas walks against the stream of their ranks, weaving through the gaps. He pauses by a tree, which momentarily becomes the body of the Dalish man it stands for, failing to plunge a dagger into a Templar’s side right before his throat is cut.

Every so often, there’s a glimmer of life. New life that has sprung up over the corpses, green and bountiful growth that has overtaken the violence and made it a memory. The Graves sings with life, though it is not the life of those who can speak. It is the August rams, the bears, the flowers, the nugs bundled in their burrows.

None of the spirits here have yet noticed Solas, much less discovered his true nature. He remains watchful as he goes. Spirits and demons come to all Dreamers, in time.

“Death, so much death. Bathing, burning in a Maker’s light, until the warmth drains away and all that’s left is dark and cold…”

“Cole.” He’s just ahead, visible through the ghosts of the Templars, standing with his hands clenched at his sides. Solas steps toward him. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“You said you could protect yourself. You didn’t say not to come. You wanted to know if I could.” While Solas inwardly curses his moment of imprecise phrasing, Cole goes on: “Slipping through, small, unseen, the same. I wanted to follow. I wanted to know if it would be different.”

Different from Adamant. He wanted to see what has changed now that he’s more certain of his true nature. Now that he can enter the Fade willingly. “And is it? How do you feel?”

“Fixed and firm, but I could fly if I wanted to. I could choose. I could soak into the souls and soothe them. I could help them forget.”

“ _No_.” Solas’ objection is immediate, hard. He quickly reigns in his emotions before continuing. “The memories here are fixed, Cole. They are grown into the foundations of the native Fade. It is admirable that you want to help them, but you would not be able to make them forget. Merging with them would only make you something you do not want to be.”

“Dying in dread, over and over again. Screaming, endless. They need me.”

“You’ve forgotten the Fade since you left. Of all the things here, you are among the most changeable. You will not be able to control them.”

Something strange starts happening to Cole. He starts to shimmer, the lines of his skin and clothing wavering, becoming indistinct. His voice warps, begins to echo as the air around them turns cold: “ _You do not command me_.”

“What isss thisss?”

The sound of a new voice is enough to distract them both, and to stop Cole from unraveling his human form. A demon of Despair is hovering nearby, one clawed finger extended from its rippling sleeve and pointed at Cole. It’s with a measure of relief that Solas looks up at the interloper: at least it can be blamed for the sudden cold.

“Compasssion ssstalled in itsss purpossse? You hear their criesss — and do nothing…”

Cole quails, reeling back as if the words were a physical blow.

“Silence, demon!” Under normal circumstances, Solas would not be so openly forceful. Demons are products of a twisted reality, more to be pitied than blamed for their nature. But this one is making itself a threat. He turns to Cole for one more second, to make sure the spirit is still with him. “Cole, do not listen to it. Hold on to what you are.”

“Aaah.” With an exhale like wind through a keyhole, the demon bobs upward, over the massive exposed root-vein of a nearby tree, and drifts closer to both of them. But its focus has shifted to the one it sees as a greater prize. “One who walksss in dreamsss. There are ssso few in thisss part of the Fade sssince the elvesss all died. Do you mourn them, apossstate?”

“With every fiber of my being.” The flames are already blooming around Solas’ hands, preparing to be targeted toward the demon’s face. “That is why you will not take me.”

He feels a flicker on his left side, and is forced to dodge out of the way when the demon lobs a ball of ice magic in his direction — he feels the edge of it brush his tunic. The demon cries, squeals. Solas looks to his left, sees no one there. Back to the demon, which is still letting out a scream that will surely attract others, and turning about, hopping in mid-air. A shape moves through the air toward it, wielding dual blades. A shape that is indistinct, yet still recognizable.

“Cole, no!” Solas can barely attack while the two of them are entangled. And if Cole should feel too much of Despair’s chill… here, the outcome could be disastrous.

Even if Cole won’t listen to him, he can’t do nothing. Solas waits until Cole’s next attack hits, then calls up a fire spell in earnest, aiming it at the hem of the demon’s cloak. It begins to disintegrate, to melt…

When it dissipates, there is Cole, crouched in the bloody grass with daggers made of dream-stuff, having struck the killing blow.

“You don’t command me, either,” he says to the absent demon.

Solas casts all his senses outward as he steps forward, alert to everything. The disturbance is bound to attract more unwanted attention. “We should not stay here.” He looks to Cole: the spirit determined in its purpose, faced with the possibility of all it can now do. “Will you return to the Inquisition?”

Cole opens his hands, and the dream-daggers disappear. “Dying, but not dead. Holes in the sky still to be healed. Too soon to lose the boy, and too late for these. Yes. I will come back.”

Later, Solas will tell himself he would have honored Cole’s choice, if things had gone another way. For now, he reaches out to take the young man’s hand, and thanks whatever gods are listening that he did not have to find out.


	4. Fade Two

_“He comes to me as though the Fade were just another wooded path to walk, without a care, in search of wisdom.”_

Blue-white light filters down through scattered clouds. It catches on flakes of snow that drift toward the ground, having been swept from ledges and branches by a passing breeze. Cole steps out from behind a sheer wall of rock, turning to look down the slope of the mountain.

“Where are we?” he asks, a second before turning the other direction.

“This is a path heading west, into the Frostbacks.” Solas steps a little closer, directing Cole’s attention to the pass that snakes off above them. “Haven is just through there. You would have come this way on your journey from Therinfal Redoubt, when you raced to warn the Inquisitor of Corypheus and the red templars.” He steps past Cole, then, beckoning with a nod, inviting him to walk to the mouth of the pass.

But Cole stays still. He’d known as soon as Solas began speaking that he wasn’t really answering the question. Where they are is much more than the place itself. He gropes for it with his mind, pulling words out of what lies beneath.

“Brittle, barren, scorched and scarred. A veil placed over the Veil.” When he turns his head, the sunlight sparkles on the snow. “It has a scent, like… like something I almost remember.”

Solas has paused to look back at him. “Find comfort in your dreams, and you may learn to recognize it again.”

So this _is_ a dream. But Cole somewhat doubts that he would be able to recognize such a thing without Solas’ help. “Only mages can open their eyes.”

“That is true,” Solas concedes, “as far as anyone knows.” He holds out a hand, again inviting Cole to walk up the mountain with him. “We’ll see, shall we?”

Cole takes a step forward, reaches out and slips his hand into Solas’. It feels solid, sure, real down to the smallest details, including the callouses that come from wielding a mage’s staff. But it’s also _thin_ , a carefully rendered surface over the raw reality of the Fade.

He feels his own pulse pick up as he follows Solas upward. Afraid that if he holds on too tight, the facade will crack.

They reach the pass. Haven is visible from this point: the low houses and tavern watched over by the Chantry, the village alive with smoke from the chimneys.

“I walked this path myself,” Solas says, “after the explosion at the Conclave. When I came to join the Seeker and Lady Leliana. I didn’t know, then, whether my offer of assistance would be appreciated, or whether they might kill me for an apostate.”

The memory is there: in this place, it is even closer to the surface. Cole looks down at the tiny figure approaching the gates of the village. A small shift in the setting. He holds on tight to Solas’ hand. “No more chances. The Fade is falling through, and no magic can measure the Breach. Seek the Seeker, and if her favor falls, flee.”

“Yes. I was prepared to run. Then the Inquisitor taught me not all hope was lost.”

Cole knows what he means. He remembers, when the red song took the templars, how he felt the light coming from the west and had followed with the hate of Corypheus at his back. The spite for what had been stolen had burned through him, hot enough to carry, for Cole, a message of hope: here was something that could hurt the ancient darkspawn. Here was something that could stop him.

The ground seems to shift beneath him again, slightly. For a second, the air around Haven dims toward twilight, and Cole thinks he can hear them: the army of red templars, the clanking of their armor barely audible over the dark, sick song in their veins.

“No.” He tries to push the memory away, and feels himself stumble, clutches at Solas’ hand, his wrist. The sun flickers like dying firelight. “Slipping, slipping backwards into the song. I don’t want to hear it. Not here.”

Solas raises his other hand to lay it against Cole’s cheek, to turn his face toward him. _Listen_. “Try to stay calm. The Fade is tapping into your memories, drawing the dream out of your thoughts. Think of peace: snow under your feet, a blue sky, a clear day.”

“It isn’t real.”

“It is as real as a memory. As real as everything you are afraid of. Push past the fear, Cole. I believe you can.”

“I… can’t…”

A fierce wind blows through the pass, whistling, carrying with it a flurry of flakes…

Silence. Vastness. Then, from under the silence, a low, echoing hum.

Cole looks up. At some point he had fallen to his knees, and Solas had followed, crouching down to keep their hands connected.

They are no longer on the slope of a mountain. Below them is flat, brown rock, dotted with small pools of green, smoky water. Above them, around them, the unmoored stones float as if weightless. In the distance, just in the periphery of vision, the Black City looms.

Cole lets out a soft keening sound, grasping at the front of Solas’ tunic. As much as he wouldn’t have wished to be in this place either, he’s relieved to have the illusion drawn back. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” The comforting words and the hand on Cole’s shoulder is more of a salve for Solas’ own disappointment. Cole can taste the bitterness at the back of his throat. “When you are ready, we can always try again.”

He wants something. Something lacking, lost, something that changed on the day they confronted the templar. Cole feels a shriveled hope trying to be coaxed back to life, a pull down a path he doesn’t know if he can follow.

“I am always me,” he says, echoing words that Solas once spoke to him. “I can’t be more than I am.”

“Perhaps that is true.” Solas wants to believe that it isn’t. “I believe that what you are is still more of a mystery than anyone can say.”

For a time, they sit like that in silence: Cole pressed as close to Solas as his hat will allow him, Solas’ hand on his shoulder, Cole’s hand still around a wrist. It occurs to Cole that he feels none of the panicked fear that plagued him when they entered the Fade at Adamant. He wonders if that means the world around them now is the true Fade, or, like the mountain, a mere vision… but if it’s the latter, Solas has made it too strong to break.

“I am glad I stayed,” Solas says, breaking the silence. “Because I did, I have been witness to things I had never thought possible to see.”

That scent again. Cole can sense it, stronger here, drifting through Solas’ clothes from his skin.

“It’s you,” he realizes. “Sharp, cracking like lightning on a tree, the smell of rain and burning air.”

“You see?” There is a soft, purring sound underneath Solas’ voice, coming from somewhere near the center of his chest. “There is still a part of you that senses the Fade.”

Cole looks up. He feels that he can see exactly what Solas wants him to be, can sense the cracks that they might press through to get there, but also the distance that separates the two points. Who can say that once they arrive, things would be exactly as they appear from here? Everything looks different when it’s far away.

There must be more answers somewhere in the depths that Solas carries with him, even if they’re only guesses. But it’s hard for Cole to hear. Maybe if he gets closer.

Their lips touch before Cole realizes they’re about to. He feels his own surprise echoed back at him, a bright and sudden shock. Solas pulls away, and the shock fades into a thrill: uncertain, out of balance, but not unpleasant. The dizziness that comes from a sudden, sharp spin around.

Then Solas surges forward again, this time claiming Cole’s lips with surety. Cole tips his head, and something that feels like a butterfly starts flapping inside his ribcage. This is nothing like the answers he was looking for, but it’s _something_ , good enough that he wants more.

Solas is again the one to break the kiss, this time cradling Cole’s jaw in his hands. “We should stop.”

Cole’s fingers are still twisted in the fabric of Solas’ tunic. He can still feel the heat against his lips. _Stop. Why?_ “Should we?”

Solas swallows before answering: “Yes.” He moves one hand to brush back some of Cole’s feathery hair, and the flow of thoughts behind that one word washes upwards.

_Too quick, too close, feet in the fire and I want to run. Steady, slow, even if it burns me. Just don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him._

“But we can try again?” The dreaming. Or… whatever that was. But it made Solas afraid. It might mean he’s changed his mind.

Cole feels Solas consider the lie, and decide it isn’t worth trying. “That depends on too much for me to say for certain now.” He tips his head, trying to catch Cole’s eyes with his own. Cole lets him. “But we can talk about it… I promise. Sometime after you —”

“— _wake up_.”


	5. But Not With Haste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to take a moment to thank everyone who's read the story so far! Thank you for the kudos, the comments, and for getting this to 100 hits :) I'm heading to a family function over the long weekend, so this may be the last chapter you see for another week or so. I only mention this because of how quickly this story's been coming to me so far. I don't want you to think I've abandoned it!  
> Also, from this chapter forward, you'll start to see cameos from other members of the Inquisition. I'll be updating the tags to reflect who has made an appearance.  
> I do want to clarify that I don't plan on specifying an Inquisitor. For one thing, it isn't plot important to this particular story. For another, I like to imagine that this is what happens behind the scenes if Solas remains unromanced — so the Inquisitor could potentially be anyone who isn't romancing Solas.  
> Hope you're enjoying the story, and thanks again!

_“We share the ancient mysteries, the feelings lost, forgotten dreams, unseen for ages, now beheld in wonder.”_

A new camp has been established at Watcher’s Canyon, and as evening starts to fall, the Inquisitor calls the party to search the walls. The presence of Veilfire, especially in the Emerald Graves, means a runic symbol cannot be far off.

Solas gives his torch a slow sweep across the section of wall in front of him, listening for the gentle chime of magic hewn into the rock. Allowing his mind to wander as he does so — it’s not as if the search is a mentally strenuous venture.

A few short days and shorter nights have passed since Cole followed Solas into the Fade, and Solas has not seen or sensed him there a second time. It could be that the initial re-exposure to the Fade frightened him off from another attempt… or that he decided to do his exploring on his own.

Both prospects are potentially worrisome, but the latter more so than the former. If Cole is finally beginning to understand what he is, that gives him just enough power to get himself in real trouble. Solas saw a glimpse of that himself, when Cole nearly dissolved himself to go after the hopeless cause of long-dead Dalish. What would have happened, if he hadn’t turned up?

A sudden collision against his elbow, and Solas is startled out of the reverie he hadn’t even realized he’d entered. Sera saunters past, all cockiness except for the fact that she’s still holding her torch at arm’s length, like it’s going to bite her. “Saggy-arse says what.”

Solas narrows his eyes at her. “Pardon?”

Sera narrows her eyes right back, still marching ahead, barely making a show of searching the canyon walls. “You were _staring_ again. Sleepin’ on your feet now?”

Ridiculous. That has to be her third attempt to get a ‘what’ out of him, and she still acts affronted when he doesn’t play her game. Solas angles his head and smiles a little, taking full advantage of the way the green light plays off his face. “I was just communing with a spirit in the stone. It’s taken a particular interest in you.”

“Urgh!” Sera’s exclamation of disgust echoes through the canyon.

“Who knows? It might pay you a visit in your dreams tonight.”

“Right! _Not_ funny!”

Solas drops it at that. For someone who spends nearly all her time trying to get a rise out of people, she really is too easy to provoke herself.

And she remains stubbornly ignorant about the Fade in general, and spirits in particular. People like Sera and Blackwall like to mock the relationships that Solas has been able to forge in his travels through the spirit realm, only because they refuse to understand how profound such things have the potential to be.

True intimacy in the Fade is not like the physical. Certainly aspects of it can be similar — just as a field in the Fade will always bear a passing resemblance to a field. But the field will also contain aspects of the battles that were once fought there, and the farmer who once tended to it, the sprouting of new growth and the decay of the old, life and death in a neverending dance.

In the Fade, emotions and memories take tangible form. For those who are in tune with its ways, the potential for self-transformation becomes realized. Solas has made himself a stone, and let a spirit in the form of water wash over him, seeking out the porous parts. He has been a branch of ivy tangled with another, nourishing and strengthening in return for the same. He has been smoke mingled with smoke, and the sigh that meets a lover’s lips. And though it was now long ago, he can dimly recall the times when he was no more or less than Himself: a prowler on the edges of creation, lapping up great pools of pleasure, communing with old, raw powers that have since dwindled into obscurity. Those are experiences that can hardly be described through the limits of language.

He has tried to defer such thoughts since the Breach was first opened. The need of the Inquisition to halt Corypheus’ efforts is paramount over all, especially over momentary dalliances. While there are still profound things to be discovered, his recent explorations of the Fade have been, of necessity, far more academic.

He continues to step forward. The Veilfire light glints off the stone.

 _You do not command me_. He can still hear the way Cole’s voice changed in that moment. It had frightened him, made him fear that in an instant the Inquisition would be losing a valuable ally to an unworthy cause. There had also been concentrated power in it, an echo that had cut through Solas to his core. The sort of resonance he has not felt in ages.

Solas shakes his head, this time forcing himself out of his musing. Having encouraged Cole to remain as he is and return to the Inquisition, why would he now consider allowing Cole to transform within the Fade? The identity he has forged for himself is tied to his shape. The moment he takes on another, he risks losing it, along with the memories of the Inquisition and his desire to stay.

Yet he has already proven to have a greater sense of self than most spirits. It’s not certain that he would forget himself, especially if Solas were there to remind him.

Solas frowns, less at the thoughts themselves than at the academic and visceral curiosity they stir in him. This is precisely what he has sought _not_ to focus on — an unnecessary distraction. Reflexively, he scans the Veil in his immediate surroundings, checking to see if Cole could be eavesdropping nearby. His search turns up empty, which does nothing to help his feeling of foolishness.

It does, however, give him the opportunity to regain his inner composure. Whatever his curiosities, he must not make them explicitly known to Cole, lest he risk taking advantage of the spirit’s desire to please. If he cannot keep from thinking about it, it is important to keep in mind that _not_ acting on these impulses will do nothing to hurt him. It is idle musing. Nothing more.

Yes. That ought to do it.


	6. As I Said Please

_ “You're real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can't.” _

Cole thinks about kissing Solas. The thought is there when he wakes, the whisper still ringing in his ears, that butterfly feeling still flapping behind his ribs, as if it might be something real. It surfaces again while he fetches bundles of dried lavender from the rafters of the Herald’s Rest, and again while he’s placing soft things under the heads of everyone who fell asleep on benches and in chairs. He thinks about the kiss, and questions rush up in a tide that threatens to drown out everything else. The more Cole goes about his business, the more it becomes clear that he won’t be able to continue until they speak. The questions are too loud to be ignored.

He finds Solas in the library, seated in one of the high-backed chairs with a book open in his lap. As fast as Cole’s feet carried him here, he feels himself slow when he starts to get close. There is something pushing back at him, dragging, sticking. He stops.

“Dried lavender is abhorrent to moths.” There’s a gentleness in Solas’ voice that makes Cole’s shoulders release by an increment, though it does little to calm the buzzing in his head. “I imagine the servants still wonder why the linen stores are so free of pests.”

Cole’s hand is still curled around a bundle of dried branches. He curls his other hand against his wrist.

“I go when I know they won’t see me.” Slipping in places when he knows people won’t be there, assisting them while they sleep. Finding ways to help that still feel right. “It’s better that way.”

“Simpler, certainly.” Solas closes the book. “Did you sleep well?”

“I slept.” Cole knows that Solas is looking at him, can feel the weight of his attention. He raises his head just enough to look at Solas’ knees. “I haven’t practiced enough to know if it was any good.”

“Indeed.” A shifting, and the sound of the book being set on a side table. “How do you feel?”

Cole shakes his head, rattling the words loose.

“Solid, but unsettled. The fear of falling, ground slipping away. I might be too heavy to float.”

“You did quite well, for a first time. Most who aren’t mages would be unable to affect the environment at all.”

“Then lighter, but louder. Focused, but fluttering.“ Cole’s thumb has found the pulse point on his wrist, which he can barely feel through the glove. “Breathing without breath, sharing… something. I was looking for answers. I didn’t mean to do it.”

Solas stands, moves closer. “Certain things are easier in the Fade. Dreams can reveal parts of ourselves we were previously unaware of.”

Cole’s throat feels tight. “Part of me hurt you.”

“Not at all.” The answer comes without hesitation. “I merely found it… startling. A surprising turn. If nothing else, Cole, you have always been a wellspring of surprises.”

For a few seconds, his voice sounds the same as it did in the dream. Then the publicness of the library asserts itself. There’s a murmur of conversation, a rustle of movement. Another mage walks past them, close enough for Cole to hear the worried whispers in her mind. Too close. When Cole looks up at Solas’ face, the larger part of tenderness has already fallen away.

“I wish to be honest,” he says, his voice lower. “Perhaps we should speak somewhere else.”

Cole nods.

* * *

 

There is more than one remote room in Skyhold that remains in disrepair, the work to restore them having been put to the wayside now that the Inquisition has enough space. Cole picks his way over the splintered wood, the debris. Mid-morning light streams through a crack between bricks, lighting up dust motes in the air.

Solas pauses just beyond the beam of light to turn and face him. “I would start by saying you have nothing to feel sorry for. If anything, I should be the one apologizing. Out of everyone, you understand the most about what I am — why I’m here. I should not have taken advantage of that closeness.”

Cole swallows. There are too many thoughts to choose from, tangling up on his tongue. He waits until one of them springs free: “Don’t.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You said honest. You should tell the truth.” There was no advantage taken. “It was me. I was the one who closed the distance.”

“And I was the one who encouraged it.” Reluctant, Solas continues: “It has been a long time.”

An expanse of time made more desolate by isolation. A palpable force of loneliness that pulls on Cole, that makes him step forward before he realizes it. “Hunting, haunted, on the lost roads for the lost ways, alone. A trail too easily erased…” That makes him stop again, wondering at the fear he felt from Solas. Not because of the importance of what he seeks, but because of what it means he must think of Cole. “Do I distract you so much? I know I’m louder than I was. I don’t want to make you forget.”

“It may be I put too little faith in myself.” He is sad, distant, pulling away even as he stands still. “I… I will need some time to think. If you would grant me that much… it would be a great help.”

* * *

 

Cassandra wakes with a start, every fiber in her body suddenly alert, instinct making her leap off of her cot and reach for a weapon. In the dim moonlight, it takes more than a moment for her to assess the room and realize there is nobody here.

A dream? She recalls no particularly disturbing visions in her sleep, or at least nothing that would warrant the sort of reaction she had. She would swear she had heard a loud noise, felt a presence in the room…

...the door is ajar. Just barely. Cassandra steps forward, and her foot hits against something on the floor. Not hard enough to stumble, but enough to make her stop short and turn. The cover of  _ Swords and Shields  _ looks up at her from the floor next to her bed.

She looks over her shoulder, again toward the door. The book on the floor, at least, could explain the noise, but why would the door be open? A gust of wind?

She has another suspicion, and the flush of potential embarrassment is enough to make her scowl, just before she stoops to retrieve the book.

“Maker’s Breath.” She can’t even fall asleep reading around here.


	7. Party Banter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now, for something a little different...

_(Occurs if Cole spares the Templar during his personal quest.)_

**Cassandra:** Cole. _Someone_ entered my room at Skyhold without my permission. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?

**Cole:** I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drop it. You moved. I got startled.

**Cassandra:** Stealing from someone is not a helpful thing to do.

**Cole:** It wasn’t stealing! It was supposed to be borrowing. I was going to bring it back.

**Cassandra:** Why would you want to borrow…? Never mind. I don’t want to know.

**Varric:** I think I might. Why would you think Cole was stealing from you, Seeker?

**Cassandra:** Apparently, it doesn’t matter.

-

**Cole:** They were made to make love, pressed into the pages, showing what should be secret. The Knight Captain and her guard.

**Varric:** Is that… you can’t be talking about _Swords and Shields_.

**Cole:** I didn’t get the chance to read any of it.

**Cassandra:** ( _Frustrated sigh._ )

**Varric:** Oh-ho. So _that’s_ what you were sneaking around Cassandra’s quarters for.

**Cole:** I wanted to see the way you made them fit. When I think about what to do with my hands, I get lost.

**Varric:** That particular story isn’t exactly a guidebook. What brings on this sudden curiosity? Somebody caught your eye?

**Cole:** A simple tunic, slender hands to mold the magic. He knew me when no one else could. He helps me dream.

**Varric:** ...who’s “he?”

**Cole:** Solas.

**Varric:** Thought it might be. That’s, uh… I’m gonna need some time to process that.

-

**Varric:** So, Kid. You like ‘em tall, bald, and broody, huh? Wouldn’t have guessed that.

**Cole:** Why would it matter that he’s bald?

**Varric:** Just tall and broody, then. I’ll let Blackwall know he’s next on the list.

**Cole:** Please, don’t.

**Varric:** ( _Laughs_.) I’m just teasing. All joking aside… If you were just curious about sex, I’d say find yourself a nice tavern boy and get it out of your system. If this is about you and Chuckles, I’m guessing there’s more to it than that. Am I right?

**Cole:** He doesn’t look, but his attention turns, hard focus, fixed, hands that would hold, falling together in the Fade.

**Varric:** I’ll take that as a Yes.

-

**Cole:** You said time to think. You promised, but the promise pulls. You wish it wasn’t like this.

**Solas:** ...yes. I suppose I do.

**Cole:** Both ways are a bother. Hold still and suffer, let go and lose what matters. It doesn’t have to be either.

**Solas:** Indeed not? What do you suggest?

**Cole:** It’s easier in the other place.

**Solas:** That is something to consider. Perhaps.

* * *

 

_(Occurs if Cole forgives the Templar during his personal quest.)_

**Cole:** Halting, hesitant, hold back, hold still. No good, too long untroubled, shaken loose, pieces falling and floating, coming apart and I can’t catch them.

Leaves trembling like hands, a breath of wind, hot and wet to make the flowers open, petals parting.

It’s not right. The wanting hurts, I can _hear_ it. Why don’t you want me to help?

**Solas:** Not now, Cole. Please.

**Inquisitor:** Solas, what is he talking about?

**Solas:** Nothing you need concern yourself with, Inquisitor. This is between us.

-

**Solas:** I’m sorry I tried to keep it from you, Cole. I should have known it wouldn’t work for long.

**Cole:** Does this mean you want me to help?

**Solas:** Our private concerns are trivial next to the duty that calls us.

**Cole:** Constant, watchful, but winking, waiting to wake. The taste of honey on the tongue, sweet behind the bite. It makes it smoother, so her blades stay sharp.

**Solas:** I had tried not to exaggerate the importance.

**Cole:** Small things matter, even when you wish they didn’t.

-

**Solas:** I’ve considered what you said, Cole. About small things. It’s true that during my time with the Inquisition, I have indulged in some simple pleasures.

**Cole:** Shaping the surface of the stone, watching the wall tell a story with plaster and paint.

**Solas:** It is meditation. A way of quieting the mind.

**Cole:** That isn't trivial.

**Solas:** Yet it puts no one at risk. Are there not others, whose needs and desires are more important?

**Cole:** It doesn’t work like that. I see the ways I can make a difference, the ways that matter. You _matter_ , Solas. As much as anyone.

**Solas:** I… I did not expect that answer.

**Cole:** But you needed to hear it.

-

**Cole:** Broken down to countless pieces, scattered by wind and water, shifting slowly, loose and languid. Then the fire comes, and melts me, fuses, makes me whole again.

**Solas:** The heat was like nothing I’ve experienced, before or since.

**Sera:** Can you two not do your Fadey shite somewhere else?

**Cole:** Jaws catch and hold, hearts racing, blood from the bite filling my mouth. Sink in deeper. Flesh yields to die, again and again.

**Solas:** _Venuralaslen_.

**Sera:** Urgh, get a frigging _room_ already!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Custom Elvhen swear created using FenxShiral's Project Elvhen.)


	8. Love With Urgency

This particular corner of the Fade has few things more fascinating in it than the mundane cycles of life and decay. It has never been thought of as special, or named apart from the paths that run through it. It is a place between places, a stop on the way between the Emerald Graves and Skyhold.

Still, there is beauty in the liminality of the environment. There is a liquid quality to the colors and shapes in the Fade: the world shifts and wavers as if viewed through water. The stars above turn slowly, following the trails they have traveled time and time again.

There is a stream a little ways off from the campsite. Cole is there, perched on the rocks at the edge of it, his legs folded under him.

“This place makes you sad.”

Solas takes a contemplative glance to one side. _Sad_ is perhaps too simplistic of a term… yet Cole isn’t wrong. “Yes.”

“The Veil has so little to hide here. Secrets lie in reach, all anyone has to do is stretch out their hand… What must it _be_ like, for those who never touch this world?”

Solas watches as Cole takes off his hat, holds it in his hands for a pregnant moment before setting it aside.

“You helped ensure I couldn’t be bound. You _know_ I choose what I do. How I help.” Cole stands, crossing the stream, stepping over the small stones that rise from it without looking down. He is wavering nearly as much as the environment, his outline blurring, fluttering as if in a breeze. “No one sees. No one remembers. Faded, forgotten, a relic remanded to the shadows.”

Solas has been perfectly still, watching his approach. He knows that as soon as he moves… but his head turns when Cole’s fingers brush against his cheek, following their gentle pressure. Cole is guiding him to look more closely.

“They might forget you, Cole, but the difference you make lives on far longer than their memory. You must hold on to that.”

Cole’s voice takes a turn for the uncertain, and a little bit peevish. “I... wasn’t talking about myself.” His palm rests more solidly against Solas’ jaw now. Behind his bangs, his eyes travel upward to meet Solas’. His gaze is as open and as piercing as it ever is, his lips slightly parted.

He sees. He _knows_. Of course he does.

It has been so long since Solas kissed anyone. All those years he slept, he was unconscious, unaware — yet he can feel that stretch of time, a bleak and gaping hole between the world he knew and the one he brought into being. To live so long without contact with anyone, with anything…

One hand has already hooked around the back of Cole’s neck, the other against his waist. Cole’s lips are soft, and his tongue shy, but after the initial surge of exhilaration, Solas is content to linger with the sensation of lips against lips… for now, at least. He sighs through his nose, opens his mouth a little further, and the hand at Cole’s waist begins traveling down. It is only a body, crafted out of necessity, but it is Cole’s, and Solas will appreciate what has been offered to him.

Cole wraps himself against Solas as close as he can, flinging one arm, then both, over his shoulders. It seems he wants to press his way through Solas’ skin… which, given where they are, is not without the bounds of possibility. But it doesn’t happen. After a moment, Cole breaks the kiss and sucks in a breath.

“Crude and coarse. Tangling limbs and hammering hearts. I know it doesn’t have to be, but I can’t…” Cole’s voice is tight and tense, his arms like a vice. “What do I do?”

It would be a lie to say Solas feels no apprehension in answering the question. But Cole has seen what it’s like to be intimate in a place like this. He has seen what it can mean to Solas, despite Solas’ efforts to keep it from him. He has already offered, more than once, and now here he is, almost trembling with the force of desire.

The trembling, as it happens, is the issue.

“Let go.”

Solas makes his next kiss deliberately gentle, which draws a soft, mewling sound out of Cole, just before his body dissolves. With his eyes almost closed, Solas feels it more than he sees it: a sudden burst of air, then a multitude of tiny contact points against his skin and clothing. He blinks his eyes open to see butterflies, dozens of them, their wings shimmering purple, red, and blue. They've landed on his hands, the ends of his fingers, his lips and cheeks, the top of his head, the tips of his ears, the tops of his feet, and all over his clothes. Their wings flap with a shy, eager uncertainty. Their curled tongues tickle at his skin. A few flutter around his shoulders and legs, testing the air... possibly seeing what it's like just to be butterflies.

Solas smiles fondly, and uncurls a palm, allowing the butterfly at the center of it to explore further. It's tongue presses into his hand, and its wings flap slowly... _is this right?_

The butterfly is doing what it knows how to do, but it's looking for something it won't find here. So, with a sigh, Solas sinks into the land below and becomes it.

He spreads through the soil, presses upward into blades of grass. It is not Spring now, but the land has a memory of Spring, of blooming wildflowers and drifting pollen. Solas allows parts of himself to unfold with the flower petals. When the first butterfly lands, he feels contentment, connection, a space within a cycle of nourishment and renewal. The butterflies can drink, now, balanced delicately on the flowers. The softest touch becomes magnified many times as Solas feels every landing.

There is buzzing in the air. Quicker wings, quicker feet, heavier weight. Some of the butterflies have become bees. Their search is for more than nourishment: bees want to commune, to create, to build and preserve. Solas stretches, curls, and becomes a tree, with a beehive waiting in the hollow.

The bees swarm to him, bringing nectar for honey. Their buzzing sends vibration over his resin skin, all through the inside of him. Shelter, community, _home_ : the bees patrol and protect, looping around the tree trunk to make sure all is clear. They crawl along the bark, search the branches. They are building within, seeking out secret corners and forming honeycomb, but it seems they want more, to find a place they can’t get to.

Solas feels a cool drop against a leaf, then another. One by one, the bees retreat: soon there is a shower falling on him, then a storm, pooling in the hollow and soaking into the ground to reach his roots. He pulls in the sweet, life-giving water, feels it lift through the flesh beneath the bark.

The storm grows and rages until the ground is muddy and the wind is whipping through the branches of the tree. Solas drinks in as quickly as he can, as much as he can, while his trunk groans under the force of the wind.

A flash of light and heat spikes down from the sky. The resulting _crack_ of noise echoes over the howl of the wind, and the tree is split in two.

Thunder rolls back along the clouds. The tree melts. Solas lies prone on the ground, remembering what it’s like to have only four limbs. He may have been transformed for no more than a few hours, but it’s been so long.

There is still rain falling on his face. Solas opens his eyes, sits up.

“Cole.”

A distant rumble of thunder sounds. Cole is here, spread into the raindrops and the clouds. Spread too thin. Solas runs a hand over his head, wiping off the mud with a frustrated flick of his wrist. He can’t let Cole dissipate like this — not when the Inquisition still needs them both.

A smaller flash of lightning illuminates the area. A glint from the edge of the swollen stream catches Solas’ eye. The hat is lying there, with one part of its brim over the edge of the water. Solas stands at once to retrieve it, only a little wobbly on legs that have to remember how to walk.

He stands in the rain, holding the hat aloft. It acts as an umbrella, creating an empty space beneath. Solas extends his consciousness outward, speaking to the rain and sky, directing their attention to the void under the hat.

“Time to come back now, Cole.”

The rain abates, the clouds pull back. As the air clears, there’s Cole beneath the hat, and Solas having to let go of it, to catch Cole as he nearly collapses.

“I was so many parts,” he says, “so many places. You found the part I left behind.” His hand clutches at Solas’ arm. “Thank you.”

Solas cradles him as best he can, lowering to one knee, then the other.

“You are yourself, as you always are. Rest now.”

In the morning, the Inquisitor wakes complaining of a tingling sensation in the Anchor. Sera gripes about needing to leave the area as soon as possible. “Feels creepy,” she says. “Like elfy shite. Or demons.”

Solas suggests a sweep for Fade Rifts before they depart, just to be sure. Cole is nowhere to be seen.

 


	9. You Said Yes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience, everyone! I'm excited to be back with this fic.

Cole discovers that if he doesn’t think about sleeping, he doesn’t get tired. If he keeps alert and doesn’t send his mind wandering, he doesn’t slip away and dream without meaning to. That’s good. There are always things to do — almost always. There is always someone who needs helping — and almost always something he can do for them.

When thoughts sneak in, it’s through the cracks created by _almost_. He sifts through the worries and wantings of the people, but there are images, words, thoughts that seem to bubble up from somewhere deep, from the place where Solas’ whisper is still echoing. There are thoughts, and there are dreams, and then there are the things in-between, the dreams of the day, imaginings and wonderings. Things that have never been, made up of the scraps of things that were.

When he sees Solas, when the thoughts and daydreams turn his way, Cole feels sleep calling to him, pulling at him, a gentle, enveloping invitation.

The invitation does not come from Solas himself. Cole knows that. Solas is balanced on a knife’s edge, even more than he has been before. He wavers whenever Cole gets close, a glint of light shining off tempered metal, and though he always rights himself, the precarious moment always repeats.

Cole almost feels the knife himself, in those moments, the brief and prickling pain against his skin. It makes him worry, because if Solas cannot make himself steady and solid again, he should be willing to fall, and allow someone to catch him. It makes him impatient, because Solas is wise enough that he should be able to realize this on his own.

He would be more impatient if he were not so uncertain himself. He feels what he wants without being able to picture it. He imagines kissing Solas again, and from there the imagining melts into a swirl of limbless, bodiless desire. At its strongest, it pulls through the center of his chest, making him too aware of his pulse and a slight tingle over his lips. Even at its strongest, he doesn’t know precisely what he would do with it.

He thought the book would help. But he never got the chance to read it, and Varric says it wouldn’t be of use anyway. Cole believes Varric, who knows more about these things than he ever has, but it does leave him back at the beginning.

Finally, he says something. They are both uncertain, both, on some level, afraid. There is only one way Cole can see to bypass both problems. They have to go back.

Solas agrees. At least, he agrees to consider it. Then he considers it. Then he agrees that Cole is right, though he doesn’t say so out loud. They don’t speak about it again, but the agreement hangs between them, until one day, Cole simply feels that it’s time.

He’s sitting curled up in a corner high in the Herald’s Rest. From the space below, from just above the hum of conversation, the minstrel Maryden’s voice is just clear enough to listen to:

_I have run_

_Through the fields_

_Of pain and sighs._

_I have fought_

_To see the other side._

_I am the one_

_Who can recount_

_What we've lost._

_I am the one_

_Who will live on._

It is night. The corridor curves ahead of him, more dark than light. It is empty, but not abandoned. Silent, but only hushed. Cole feels the weight of potential discovery, knowing that at any moment —

“Where are we now?” Cole turns sharply. Solas steps forward, examining the walls. “This place is not part of my memory.” Meaning that the dream came from Cole. But he already knew that. He couldn’t forget this place, even if he wished to.

“This is where they would walk,” he recounts. “Quick, silent footfalls, trying not to breathe too loud. Nearby, the stairway where they would meet. The templars always echoed when they came down the stairs. Time enough to hide. Time enough to find each other in the dark. She would breathe into his ear…”

Solas is gazing up toward the ceiling, as if to see to the top of the Spire. “This is a Circle. The one in Val Royeaux. You dreamt up the place where you would watch forbidden lovers meet.”

“They always hurt, but they didn’t want to die. They wanted each other. I couldn’t give them more than that. I didn’t know how to try.”

“You would have wanted to.” It’s barely more than a statement.

“They deserved somewhere safe. They did everything they could.”

“Circle mages, seeking a moment in the dark. Varric’s Knight-Captain…” Cole feels heat under his face. He hadn’t known that Solas had heard about his break-in to Cassandra’s quarters. “Is this all you want, Cole? A furtive tryst?”

The question stabs at him. The heat in his head burns hotter.

“You’re disappointed,” Cole says, “but you answered the question before you asked.”

He has more to say. But before he can go on, there’s a hand pulling at his neck, and a kiss pressing against his lips. Cole tenses, then melts, lets out a breath, grips at the Solas’ tunic. The pull through his chest sinks into his stomach. His legs are weak. His hat is knocked backward, hits the floor with a clatter, and he feels himself being pushed until his shoulders meet the wall. Solas is drinking in the kiss, as if to suck the air out of him.

Sound echoes through the corridor. Footsteps. Cole pushes at Solas’ shoulders, breaks the kiss.

“Can’t be here. Can’t stay still. They’ll find us, and they'll _hurt_ us.” The templars. The dream is following the form of memory. Cole pushes, then pulls, scooping his hat up off the floor again and tugging Solas down the hallway after him.

Until Solas counters, pulling him aside into a room. “This way.”

It’s a bedroom. A room Cole doesn’t remember. Neither does he remember the way the door shuts and locks behind them, total and secure. The door disappears. There is no door. The room is round, the walls featureless. The bed is large and canopied, carved vines curling up the columns.

Cole doesn’t know what to do with his hands. His hands are rising toward Solas’ face. His fingertips feel out the skin over Solas’ cheekbones. It is a shell.

Another kiss. Solas smells like lightning, like grass after a storm. Cole hears rain against the windows (there are no windows). His fingers trace the edges of Solas’ ears. There is a roll of thunder, overhead and also closer, a rumble reverberating through Solas’ throat.

Cole is lying back on the bed (they never walked to the bed). Solas is a shadow over him. Smoke. Solid.

“What is it you _do_ want?”

 _I don’t know_ _._ The words stick and tangle in his throat. Not knowing doesn’t matter. There is an answer. If he speaks, it will come.

“Breath so close that it blends. Formless, floating, singing beneath the skin.” He still doesn’t know what to do with his hands. This time they don’t move. He’s ready — he knows. “You can do that.”

“I can.” Solas becomes smoke, mist. Cole breathes in, a deep breath, and Solas is gone.

No — not gone. Cole claps his hands over his mouth and nose as soon as he realizes, afraid to breathe out. He can feel the difference, the warmth in his lungs and throat, alive and swirling. If he lets go, it may be over too soon.

 _Hold on_. His eyes close, then open wide. His palm is a seal against his lips. His lungs are starting to burn. Cole’s shoulders press into the mattress while the bend of his spine arches upward; an involuntary sound leaks out of him. _Hold on._

He can’t.

When he releases, his hands are flung down to his sides, fingers gripping the sheets, and breath is gasped out of his lungs — only breath. A ripple runs through his veins, pulsing in an echo of his heartbeat. _Solas_. Cole breathes in, then out again, words he has never heard or spoken before spilling over his lips.

The sensation rolls and beats through him once more, twice, before it settles. The core of it lies low in his hips, a tight coil of warmth, but his whole body is tingling. His heart beats hard, Solas echoes back with a rush that extends to his fingertips, and the echo is soon joined by others, a myriad of fluttering wings behind his ribs.

Cole manages to raise a hand, to slip it under the collar of his shirt over his chest. His other hand curls over his hip, then his belly, then over the spot where Solas is coiled. The vines start crawling up the columns of the bed. The beating of wings raps against his palm, fingers brush against tender, ready nerves, and something _connects_.

He is on the bed, eyes wide, watching the vines growing over the canopy. He is in the Herald’s Rest, alone, half-asleep, but his back is arching, breath coming hard. He is back on the bed, the wash of pleasure slowly draining through him. His head is in Solas’ lap. Solas is stroking his hair.

Cole takes the time to catch his breath.

“I don’t want it to be wrong.” _A furtive tryst_ , Solas had said. Why would he say that? Why would he want to believe it? “Does it have to be?”

“I am afraid it does.” Cole sees the path to something else, overgrown and shut off, blocked by stone and steel… impassable. So many parts of Solas are held distant, but this is different. This is a wall he built himself.

Cole rests a hand on Solas’ knee. “If the choice is to be wrong, or to let you be lonely, I’d rather be with you.”

Solas is sad. He is regretful. He is grateful.

“I know.”


	10. My Blood Runs Weak

The return to Skyhold brings new responsibilities: new research to cover, new communications to handle. In Cole’s case, new people to help. They speak little of what happened between them in the Fade — not from any need to avoid the subject, but because, Solas thinks, there is little to be said that is not already mutually understood. Cole asks, sometimes, about past experiences, and Solas is more than willing to tell the stories when they are alone. To relive the memory of being liquid, flower, or flame, being touched and transformed in ways most have never experienced. It becomes an indulgence in itself, one that Solas allows particularly when he is already engaged in something else, such as building on the mural.

It is during one of these times, when Solas is sketching out the next piece of the fresco, and Cole is perched next to him on the desk, watching, that Cole proposes a second trip. Solas doesn’t see a need to even look up from his work to respond.

“That would be unwise.” He draws the next line on the parchment in a single, swooping gesture. “The last time, we were lucky. Our actions could have attracted demons.”

“You kept us safe.” Cole slips off of the desk to stand next to Solas, his voice dropping to a murmur. “Quick and quiet, whispers responding as the weather. Desire doesn’t look for itself in the rain.”

“I took what precautions I could, at the time.” The change in proximity makes the continued focus on his work seem more like he’s ignoring Cole — not his intent. Solas sets down his drawing implement, and turns to face the spirit. “I am far from infallible.”

Cole’s eyes are, as usual, wide and staring from behind his hair, but with the way his bangs are falling in this moment, Solas can see more of them than he’s used to.

“But you _belong here.”_

Solas feels himself lurch through the world, pulled along by a tug at his forearm, before he can stop it. Just like that, they have slipped across the Veil to the other side. Skyhold is dark and flickering, every torch and glowstone ever lit within its halls casting shadows that dance like water along the walls and through the doorways. It smells of dust and moss, rusted metal, old wood. The chill wind seeping up the mountain blows through the cracks in the stone. Snow drifts down from a hole in the ceiling which has long since been repaired. In the distance, someone sings. Even farther away, someone laughs.

Solas has seen and heard this all before. He has dreamed in Skyhold because he had no choice but to sleep. Over the course of dozens upon dozens of nights, he has wandered the old halls and felt all the years the castle was left in darkness and disrepair, until the regret and sorrow faded into something quieter, easier to live with. Being wrenched into it so suddenly, however, makes his insides roil, as if he might actually be ill.

Cole’s hands are on either side of Solas’ head. Solas can see little of the expression on his face, but there’s a tension in his shoulders, in the way his fingertips press against Solas’ skin.

“Too fast. I found the crack in the curtain and pulled before it could disappear — I’m sorry.”

As soon as he’s composed himself, Solas lets out a sigh. Cole’s intentions are still nothing less than pure and simple. He is still trying to give Solas something he lacks — something that, despite his efforts, he has not been able to stop himself from wanting.

He raises his own hands and gently draws Cole’s away from his face, by the wrists.

“You’re becoming more adept at passing from one side of the Veil to the other,” he says, adopting the instructional tone he’s used with Cole so many times. “You are learning to more keenly distinguish between the two, even in places where the Veil is thin.”

Cole nods. “It’s always there. I can feel it fluttering, parting to let dreamers pass. I want to stay on that side, while I can still help. I know where I should be. But you’re split between both places.”

Before Solas can answer, Cole is pressing a hand against the center of his chest. There is a change in the room, in the air, in the light — it clatters, like an ancient lock being turned, and the wavering shadows revolve through and around each other until they coalesce into a shape.

Solas does not need to see it to know what it is. He can feel it stretching from beneath his feet to the wall behind him, a towering, animal shape. He can feel it as one feels a phantom limb, or the chasm of time between a distant memory and the present.

They have never spoken about just how much Cole has seen. All Solas has known, until now, is that Cole was keeping his discoveries in confidence. He has not always known what to make of that. For all that he understands spirits, for all he can tell himself Compassion would never spill the closely-guarded secrets of one’s past without great need… Cole is different. He always has been, and still is, even now.

“How much do you know?”

Cole is looking down in the direction of his own hand, through Solas’ chest.

“You didn’t mean those deaths. More pain added to the pile, more to bear before the end. _I’ve failed._ ”

_Those_ deaths. There is an implied distinction in that which Solas can’t help hearing.

“Many would consider me a monster.” And they will, if this should ever come to light.

“I don’t.”

“Why?”

Cole’s head tilts. Solas knows this particular gesture well by now: Cole is looking for the answer outside of himself, because he lacks the words to express it on his own. Still, when he speaks the borrowed words, it’s with a tone that makes it feel no less true.

“ _Ar lath ‘ma vhen’an._ ”

His hand is still on Solas’ chest, both wrists being held by Solas’ fingers, and yet there is another set of hands lifting to brush against his face, resting against his cheeks, and then Cole is drawing himself in for a kiss. It’s soft, like the last time, but less shy, more sure. Two more sets of fingers rest against the fabric of his leggings. Two more hands press themselves against his waist before wrapping around to his back. Compassion is encircling him, welcoming him as a lover — Solas can sense the light in the Fade shifting from behind his closed eyelids, feel his shadow shortening, pulling back toward his feet, gradually...

Gradual, slow. Too slow. They are still in danger of attracting demons — this is no nameless path in the middle of a forest; how many dreamers are already here, enticing spirits to show them visions? If one of those spirits were to happen upon them now, to see his shadow — panic shoots through him, and it’s enough to make him pull back, to take a staggering step out of arm’s reach.

“Not here.” He shakes his head. No, he needs to be more firm. “Not ever again, Cole. I can’t.”

Cole doesn’t move, but stands watching Solas for a moment. He has only one set of hands.

“You make the pain yourself,” he says, after the pause. “You _make_ the wanting hurt when it doesn’t have to.”

Solas’ heart is still racing. His chest is tight, resisting his efforts to breathe.

“Regrettably,” he answers, “it is a habit I cannot afford to break.”

Under the brim of his hat, in the ever-changing shadows, Cole’s face is unreadable. He remains still, silent, for another long moment, before he raises a hand, and waves it. The light and shadows solidify, the echoes of the past give way to the hard and sharp noise of the present, and Solas stands on the other side of the Veil, alone.


End file.
